![]() The big kosher companies of the time - Manischewitz, Ba Tampte, Rokeach - were all represented.”īy all accounts, the event was a smashing success so many people came that the fire marshal had to close it down for safety reasons. “It was opened a few hours for the trade, including manufacturers, importers, distributors, and supermarkets, but was mostly geared toward consumers. “I davened the first minyan Motzaei Shabbos and when I arrived at the Javitz Center, there was a line snaking all the way around 34th Street with people waiting to get in,” Lubinsky says. When the first show opened in March 1987, it made a big splash: The New York Times and other newspapers as well as several television stations showed up to cover it. “Somebody over there said to him, ‘Go to Lubinsky, he’s a PR guy.’ Half an hour later he was at my door, and retained me on the spot.” “Then he approached the OU, but it soon became clear that to partner with them he could only feature OU-certified products,” Mr. He gave a deposit to the Javitz Center in Manhattan, and registered the event as the Kosher Food and Jewish Life Expo. Experienced with organizing shows for the needle trade, he hit on the idea of a combined kosher food trade and consumer show to help promote the nascent industry. Silverman, who was accustomed to seeking out the tiny “kosher” section of supermarkets when he traveled - usually offering little more than boxes of matzoh, Manischewitz wine, and jarred gefilte fish in gelee - began noticing an increase in the range of available kosher products. Irving Silverman was a Conservative Jew who lived on Long Island and made his living selling show space for the needle trade industry, as well as from an antique store he owned in Maine. Pictured here with Israel’s Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu Not Just Gefilte Fish In today’s mega-supermarkets, there’s room for 15 brands.”Ĭue the music for When Zaidy Was Young as we take a trip back to the “olden days” of the 1980s, when there were only two kinds of kosher mayo, when kosher wine meant sacramental, such as Tokay and Malaga, and when Kosherfest was nothing more than the gleam in the eye of a traveling salesman from Roslyn, Long Island.įormer Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for Agudath Israel, “founding father” of Kosherfest, cochairman of the International Committee for the Preservation of Har Hazeitim are just some of the titles that Menachem Lubinsky has held over his decades of public service, leading to warm relationships with a host of leaders and decision-makers. There was only room for one or two brands of mayonnaise on the shelf. “Once upon a time, we had only small mom-and-pop groceries. “The emergence of enormous kosher supermarkets throughout the Jewish world means that consumers can discover new products right on the shelves of their groceries,” he elaborates. ![]() These days, you don’t need a kosher trade show to discover exciting new products, he explains. And then finally, the kosher world grew so big that Kosherfest collapsed under its own weight, a victim of its own success.Īccording to Menachem Lubinsky, the owner of Lubicom Communications and a partner in Kosherfest since its inception, the disappearance of Kosherfest is simply a result of the kosher food industry’s astronomical growth, and isn’t really bad news at all. Kosherfest began small, then grew bigger. Having navigated its crowded aisles a few times myself, it struck me as resembling nothing so much as a vast beehive, designed to create an extraordinary amount of buzz. Anybody who was anybody attended the show: representatives from kosher companies and supermarkets, entrepreneurs launching new products, bloggers, Insta influencers, cookbook authors, politicians shaking hands. ![]() Kosherfest was a foodie’s paradise, with hundreds of booths showcasing products old and new. ![]() There were many unhappy faces in kosherland when Diversified Communications, the company behind the event, announced in May that it would be discontinuing the show. Kosherfest, the kosher food industry’s enormous business-to-business show, has been held yearly since its launch in 1989, until now. Kosherfest founder Menachem Lubinsky reflects on the explosive rise of the kosher food industry
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